Recent developments in the field of dictation recording and transcribing equipment have included a proliferation of display devices for providing information to both the dictator and transcriber which will aid in orderly dictation and in orderly transcription of recorded dictation.
Generally displays for transcribing devices have included some arrangement for displaying the beginning and the end of recorded dictation and the present location of the transcribe transducer relative to the beginning and end points.
More recently, transcription display systems have been provided which give an indication of the relative locations of predetermined signals such as the locations of instructions or the locations of end marks indicative of the end of a piece of dictation where the prerecorded signals were recorded as part of the dictation process.
Some previous displays for transcribing devices have provided arrays of light emitting elements which show the relative locations of the prerecorded signals as detected during scanning operations performed by rewinding the record medium in a discrete record carrier, such as a tape cassette. Such systems have provided useful displays but the mechanism used therein are referenced from the point at which the transcriber begins rewinding. This arrangement has made it necessary for the device to include either: (1) a mechanically operated slide for indicating the total amount of tape rewound so that a beginning point reference can be created; or, (2) a separate step of justifying the elements of the display upon completion of rewind, for example, as detected by an end of tape motion. One example of the former system is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 4,051,540 to Wilder et al. and an example of the latter may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,200,893 to Matison.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,352,173 which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention shows an arrangement for having a constantly justified display of the relative locations of the prerecorded signals by virtue of using one end of a display as always corresponding to the farthest point which has been reached during rewind. The arrangement shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,352,173 has therefore overcome the disadvantage of requiring a separate justification step after a complete rewinding of the record medium.
However, the arrangement of U.S. Pat. No. 4,352,173 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,200,893 both share a requirement that a memory be provided having a plurality of locations, each of which must correspond to a particular segment of the record medium. This means that for a display having N actuable segments to represent the length of the tape, the arrangement must include a memory device having at least N locations to represent the entire length of the tape. As the resolution of the display increases, so does the number of storage locations required.
For example, the particular arrangement shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,200,893 shows a memory which is addressed directly off a counter driven by a motion sensing apparatus mechanically linked to the tape transport. Therefore each address of the memory corresponds to a particular segment of the record medium.
While linear displays of light actuable elements which may be constantly illuminated, blinking, or varying in intensity are useful, they have the disadvantage of requiring some type of visual approximation of the distance between some marker indicating the present location of the transcribe transducer and the next upcoming mark or marks. Furthermore, it has been found to be basically impractical to include more than sixty actuable segments in a linear display designed to be used with a standard tape cassette holding thirty minutes of dictation on one side. Thus resolution of the display has been limited to half minute increments.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,200,893 makes a passing suggestion that a plurality of digital numerical readouts be used to indicate the absolute distance from the beginning of the tape to certain detected prerecorded signals, such as instruction signals which were detected during a previous rewinding operation. This coupled with an arrangement which shows a numerical indication of the present location of the transcribe transducer relative to the beginning of dictation can provide an indication of how far the tape must be advanced until the next signal is reached. This arrangement still requires a subtraction calculation on the part of the user in order to determine the difference between the numbers in the present location display and the next position of a prerecorded signal.